The Raja of Cannanore urges João da…

The Raja of Cannanore urges João da Nova to stay under his protection and avoid a fight, but Nova, noticing the landside breeze in his favor, decides to attempt a breakout.

After a few rounds of cannon open a little hole in the Calicut line, Nova orders his four ships into a column formation and charges through it, cannon blasting on either side.

The powerful Portuguese cannonades and carracks' height foil Malibari attempts to throw grappling hooks and board the Portuguese quartet.

As the Portuguese column continues out to sea, Nova continues firing his cannon relentlessly at his pursuers.

The Calicut fleet, less seaworthy, begins to splinter and lag behind.

As the Third Armada pulls away, the prospect of a grapple dims, and the battle is limited to a ranged artillery duel.

The Malabari ships quickly realize their Indian cannon cannot match the range and speed of reloading of the Portuguese cannon, and begin to turn away.

At this point, Nova gives a brief chase, before finally breaking up the engagement on January 2, 1502.

After two days of fighting, the Third Armada has sunk five large ships and about a dozen oar-driven boats, inflicting a great deal of damage on the remaining Malabari vessels while sustaining very little damage themselves.

Although João da Nova had not come prepared for a fight, the two-day naval battle off Cannanore is perhaps the first significant Portuguese naval engagement in the Indian Ocean.

It is not the first clash between Portuguese and Indian ships—Vasco da Gama's First Armada and Cabral's Second Armada had their share—but these earlier encounters had been largely with poorly armed merchant ships, scrawny pirates and isolated squads, targets that a single, well-armed fighting caravel can see off without much difficulty.

This time, the Zamorin of Calicut had attacked directly, deploying the best his navy could offer against a small group of relatively lightly armed Portuguese merchant carracks.

The results are disheartening to the Malabari ruler.

The battle has made it abundantly clear the great disparity between European and Indian technology in ship design and artillery—a gap that, in subsequent years, the Portuguese will repeatedly exploit and the Zamorin of Calicut is desperate to close.

To nullify the Portuguese naval superiority, the Zamorin will have to stick to land or look abroad to the Arabs, the Turks and the Venetians.

The battle is also historically notable for being one of the earliest recorded deliberate uses of a naval column, later called line of battle, and for resolving the battle by cannon alone.

These tactics will become increasingly prevalent as navies evolve and begin to see ships less as carriers of armed men, and more as floating artillery.

In this respect, this encounter has been called the first 'modern' naval battle.